You might recall that HBO didn't exactly rush to embrace broadband video. The company initially poisoned copies of their TV shows available for download via BitTorrent, petitioned the FCC to make DVR recording of subscription video-on demand illegal, and threatened Slingbox for place shifting technology. It took years for HBO to finally offer their HBO Go broadband video service, but they've walled it off so that it's only available to users who subscribe to traditional cable.
Now in a one-two punch for Netflix, Time Warner has decided to not only double the new release delay window to nearly 60 days (someone should tell executives that simply drives users to piracy), they're also going to stop selling HBO content on DVD directly to Netflix at a discount:
Netflix typically buys the film and TV show DVDs that it rents to customers through wholesale venues, thereby taking advantage of volume discounts. But from now on, Netflix will have to buy DVD sets of shows like True Blood and Boardwalk Empire at retail in order to rent them to customers. It's not a huge financial hit to Netflix, but it is a signal about what the competitive landscape looks like. Asked about the change, a Netflix spokesman said, Netflix will continue to provide HBO titles on DVD and Blu-ray to our members."
This move comes as HBO and Time Warner already prevent Netflix from streaming HBO shows. HBO executives believe that by making content available to fewer people, they'll somehow retain HBO's reputation (in their minds) of HBO as a premium entity. In reality, HBO's doing what many cable operations are doing, trying to wall off and jack up the price of content in the false belief this can protect legacy business models from both piracy and competitors. Netflix meanwhile is getting into original programming, something that terrifies the folks at traditional outfits like HBO.read comment(s)